Just to share a light moment of my day…

Spam is a big headache of mine. I’m using Google Apps for my email, but some tidbits of it still filter through. So my iPhone beeped, and I look down to see this:

Somehow, it just seems to fit.

Well, it’s April fist. Aside from being the worst day to get news from the internet (it seems like April 1st has become the unofficial Internet holiday for pranking), today also has a good deal of personal significance which has preoccupied my thoughts.

In the “real news” leading up to day, the mass media was preaching doom-and-gloom about Conflicker. 

First, and I need to say this, if you are hearing about a computer virus or new techno-widget from the mass media nightly news, then YES, you are the last one to know about it.

The problem is of course that the bubble heads on the news know as much about tech as they do about the economy. Also, because hype sells more advertising, there is very little incentive for the bubble heads to put this story in it’s proper context. (and I guess it would be pretty embracing if the world really did fall apart, and they missed the story)

None the less, people still had real problems today, and I still had to go out with my team and fix those problems. However, almost every “normal” problem we encountered today was compounded by people asking us “is this confiker?”. What compounded the issue was in some cases the insistence that the problem WAS caused confiker, because the people on TV said that confiker was happening today.

My favorite call out from today was an error printing. When I got there, the first question he asked was “could these be confiker?”. I reached down, and pulled a crumpled sheet out of his HP LaserJet and replyed “Nope, just a paper jam.” At least we both had a good laugh about it.

I’ve been getting some calls about a message from AVG warning users that it will “Expire” on April 12th, and stop updating. 

First, DON’T PANIC. Second DON’T BE DUPED INTO PAYING FOR IT. If you really, really, want to pay for AVG then go ahead, but don’t be tricked into doing so because you fear that your computer will be unprotected. 

I would put more stock into AVGs “this will stop working on…” threat if they had not done this before and AVG 7.5 kept working after the supposed cutoff date.

I’m advising my Clients to hold off and click “install later” when you get the message. I’d like to see if AVG really does stop working on April 12, or if this is just a marketing ploy.

I have to admit, I’m a little put out with AVG. The seem to have gone down the Norton road of trying to become an “all-in-one” security center. Like Norton and Mcafee before it, I fear that AVG’s strategy is doomed to shipwreck on the same “bloatware” rocks. 

AVG 7.5 is a great simple product. It does ONE thing, and does it well. Its an Anti-Virus with a real time scanning feature. The newer versions of AVG are massively over complex system with the cardinal sin of embedded browser features. 

Microsoft is supposed to release it’s own free anti-virus some time this year. When they do, I;m going to take a hard look at it. While it may not be the “best” anti-virus, it will be from Microsoft, so at least there shouldn’t be any overlap with other Microsoft security products. Also, it should also update via the same channels as the rest of the MS Update items, which makes for simpler management. I’ll be testing this anti-virus just as soon as it comes out. 

In the mean time IF AVG fails us, there are still may free anti-viruses out there. One I am looking at right now is ClamWin. It seems to be based on the popular GPL ClamAV, which is a free (as in cost), and free (as in open source), anti-virus. Now the free ClamWIN DOES NOT have an automatic embedded real time scanner. However this may not be a bad thing. By removing the real time feature, you do free up a lot of memory and CPU cycles.  ClamWin can scan on a schedule, and if you have the free (as in cost) Microsoft Windows Defender, then you do have a real time scanner for the more dangerous and likely threat of Spyware and Adware.